British Fascists

The British Fascists was a fascist political party in the United Kingdom which was founded on 6 May 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman in response to Benito Mussolini's successful March on Rome. The group was founded as a splintergroup of the Conservative Party, and it held conservative views such as support for the monarchy, support for the Boy Scout ideals of "brotherhood, service, and duty", and opposition to socialism and communism; it was more of an anti-communist force than a fascist one. Most of its early members were upper-class right-wingers, including several male and female aristocrats angered at the decline of the large landowning agricultural sector, as well as middle- and lower-class fascists who engaged in street brawls with CPGB members. The party sought to take advantage of the 1926 general strike to fight off the inevitable "Bolshevik revolution" and increase their popularity, but the government refused to employ them as scabs, and the civility and brevity of the strike sabotaged the Fascists' plans to politicize the strikes or fight back against the socialists. The movement declined during the late 1920s due to its failure to adopt true fascism, and, after 1931, it abandoned its attempts to adopt a British version of fascism, instead adopting Mussolini's programme. The party became increasingly anti-Semitic in its death throes, and, in 1934, the party became bankrupt and dissolved. Most of its members would go on to join the British Union of Fascists.